Yahoo Movies Strangers help seniors to safety during massive St. Albert fire
Good Samaritans, fire crews, police and staff are being praised for helping more than 200 people escape two seniors buildings in St. Albert safely Thursday evening.
The Citadel Mews West Continuing Care Facility caught fire just before 8 p.m., and bystanders, local residents and staff rushed to help get residents out the doors.
Richard Belley's 86-year-old father, Maurice, had lived in the residence for five or six years and was among the 100 from that building to be evacuated.
Friday morning, Belley recounted how residents teamed up to help seniors down the stairs to safety.
"Here, grab the wheelchair, bring him down the stairs,'" Belley repeated directions heard in the halls. "Here grab this oxygen bottle, get it out of the building."
Belley spoke to media outside the St. Albert Inn, where many of the evacuated residents are staying in temporary lodgings.
"I couldn't be prouder of this community," he said. "If I were a writer, I'd write a story called '300 heroes' about the people from this community who stepped in."
Brian Farrell, the CEO of Christenson Communities that runs Citadel Mews West and East, was equally as impressed by the effort from the community.
"Some of these people — not just in our building, [but] the other building — had to get carried down a couple of flights of stairs," Farrell told CBC News Thursday night. "So if it wasn't for great staff and great people, this could have been a real tragedy."
WATCH | Strangers help assist seniors in evacuating building
Three people were taken to hospital Thursday night, two with smoke inhalation and one with lacerations.
Farrell said 38 people in assisted living quarters and 60 from the independent living wing were evacuated from the building.
Alberta Health Services and the company are looking for new homes for the 38 in assisted living, while the independent tenants can choose where they want to move next.
The building to the east, the Citadel Village long-term care centre, was also evacuated as a precaution.
Blair Halliday, chief operating officer for Qualicare Health Services Corp., said the 129 Citadel Village tenants were helped to safety.
He recounted a similar experience with locals assisting.
He was gripping the bottom of a wheelchair with a resident in it, and noticed another man holding the top of the wheelchair as they moved down the stairs.
"Do I know you?' " he asked the man, who said no, he was walking by on the street and saw there was a fire and came in to help.
Halliday said the tenants have been temporarily relocated to other long-term care homes, including Miller Crossing, Dickensfield and the Jubilee Lodge for at least a few days.
With no direct damage to the building, Halliday expects the tenants will be able to move back in to the Citadel long-term care centre in a few days.
St. Albert's acting fire chief, Scott Wilde, said officials don't yet know how the fire started nor the extent of the damage.
He believes crews succeeded in containing the damage as much as possible.
"It's a big building — it did sustain significant loss but at the same time we saved a significant part of the building," Wilde said at a news conference Friday afternoon.
Belley, happy that everyone is safe, recognizes the loss in his father's room at the continuing care home.
"There's a connection in his suite to everybody — my mom, the pictures, the furniture she had as a child, she still had in that suite, and that stuff is all gone, all gone."
